(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Daniel chapter 9 beginning in verse number 1 the Bible reads in the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus of the seed of the Medes which was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans in the first year of his reign I Daniel understood by books the number of the years whereof the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet that he would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem. Let me start out by pointing out a few things here. First of all Darius is the son of Ahasuerus. This is not the Ahasuerus from the book of Esther. This is Darius the Mede. Ahasuerus is the king of Persia and not only that but Ahasuerus comes decades later. We know that when Darius the Mede took the kingdom he was 62 years old according to Daniel chapter 5. So his dad was probably already dead at that time since he himself was 62 years old. So Ahasuerus is a man who is going to reign decades after this Darius. What you'll find is that a lot of the kings during these periods will use a lot of the same names over and over again and this is where you can get confused. There are two completely different Darius's in the Old Testament. There are two different Ahasuerus's and if you start studying ancient history of Greece and Rome and Egypt you'll find you know seven different Cleopatra's and you'll find just people over and over again being named Antiochus or Ptolemy or whatever because these names just keep getting used over and over again and passed down. So don't let that confuse you. This is Darius the son of Ahasuerus the seed of the Medes. This is the Darius who reluctantly throws Daniel in the lion's den in chapter 6. That's who this is. It says in the first year of his reign I Daniel understood by books the number of years where of the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet that he would accomplish 70 years in the desolations of Jerusalem. Let's look up that scripture in Jeremiah. Keep your finger here in Daniel 9. Let's go back to Jeremiah 25. And in Jeremiah 25 and 29 we will find this predicted. I'll go ahead and start reading while you're turning. Verse 8, Therefore, thus saith the Lord of hosts, Because ye have not heard my words, behold, I will send and take all the families of the north, saith the Lord, and Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land, and against the inhabitants thereof, and against all these nations round about, and will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, and an hissing, and perpetual desolations. And notice that word, desolations, because that word comes up over and over again here. Moreover, I will take from them the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones, and the light of the candle, and this whole land shall be a desolation and an astonishment. And these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years. Remember, that's the seventy years that Daniel talked about. And it shall come to pass, when seventy years are accomplished, that I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, saith the Lord, for their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans, and I will make it perpetual desolations, and I will bring upon that land all my words which I have pronounced against it, even all that is written in this book which Jeremiah hath prophesied against all the nations. So we see, according to verse 8, when a nation doesn't hear God's words, and hear there doesn't mean simply to just hear them with our ears, but to actually take heed unto them, to regard them, to be obedient unto them. The Bible is saying that if we do not hear God's words, God will punish us. God will punish that nation. It doesn't matter whether they are his chosen people of Israel, or whether they're a foreign nation like Babylon. God demands obedience to his word of all people. And so we see here that the children of Israel were punished and their nation was made desolate for seventy years as a result of ignoring God's word. But then God says here that at the end of that seventy years, he's going to come and punish the king of Babylon, and punish the Babylonians, and they will be defeated. Now flip over just a few pages to the right to Jeremiah 29, verse 10. This is reiterated again. For thus saith the Lord, that after seventy years be accomplished, at Babylon I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place. For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. See, the Lord wants to bless them, but he has to punish them because they were wicked and disobeyed his word. But he says after seventy years I'm going to visit you, and I'm going to bring you home again. They're going to go into captivity into Babylon for seventy years, but then they're going to come home at the end of the seventy years. Daniel had been studying this scripture. Flip back over to Daniel chapter 9. Now the reason why Daniel is so interested in this particular scripture, in the first year of the reign of King Darius, is that if you remember, Darius was the one that invaded Babylon at the end of Daniel chapter 5. And so Daniel is living in a time where this prophecy is being fulfilled. Basically, he's been in captivity for most of his life in Babylon. He's been there for seventy years, and after seventy years he interprets the handwriting on the wall, Darius comes in and takes the kingdom, and he's excited now about prophecy being fulfilled around him, that it's actually happening the way God said. So he decides to hit the books. He decides to especially look into the book of Jeremiah and calculate the timing and say, you know, is this it? Is God going to bring back his people to the promised land? He sees Babylon falling, but he wanted to go and see specifically what God said. And what did he say in Jeremiah 29? He said he's going to bring them back to that place. So Daniel begins to set his face unto the Lord in verse 3, and to seek by prayer and supplication with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. So he's going to pray to the Lord to help him understand the book of Jeremiah and to understand what is going to happen at the end of seventy years, which is where he's living right there at that event. And he's also confessing the sins of his people because he wants to make sure that God follows through with bringing the people back to the land. So he wants to make sure that his people are right with God, and he wants to confess the sins of his people so that his people can be forgiven. So it says that he understood by books at the beginning of verse 2, whereof the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet. Now the word understanding, we use the modern word intelligence. The Bible used the word understanding. Now when we say that someone is intelligent, what does that mean? It means that they understand things. That's why the word intelligible means it can be understood. And the Bible tells us over and over again that knowledge, wisdom, and understanding are important for us to have. God wants us to seek those things and desire those things. And when we see Daniel deep in prayer, he's praying for understanding. He's praying because he wants to learn the Bible. He wants to understand the Bible. But notice, before he just prays and asks God to give him all the answers, first he studies the information that he has. And you know, we have even more information than Daniel had. We have a lot more books to study. We have 66 books of the Bible right here that we can study and understand God's word and understand Bible prophecy. And if we want God to reveal things to us, first we need to make sure that we've studied the scripture that we have. Daniel isn't just looking for new revelations when he hasn't even finished reading that which God has already given him. First, he studies Jeremiah, he reads his Bible that he had cover to cover, then he goes to the Lord and prays for understanding. And so we need to make sure that we're reading our Bibles cover to cover and then praying to the Lord and asking him to give us deeper understanding and to reveal more things to us about that which we've already read. And of course, Daniel's prayer is answered. But today our society is becoming very dumbed down in general. How do you understand? Well, Daniel said he understood by books. If you want to gain intelligence in your life, if you want to understand things about any subject matter, you need to hit the books and study and read and learn. And today, people don't read books. And we've become dumbed down in our school system, we've become dumbed down as a culture. If you don't believe me, just go online and look what's popular, look what's trending on the internet. Look at these challenges that the young people are doing and tell me that we haven't been dumbed down when you look at the Tide Pods and I'm not even going to bring up the other things that people are doing with these strange challenges and so forth. But it's carried over into the church house as well where churches are getting dumbed down. Where churches, they don't preach any doctrine, they don't touch any difficult scriptures because people just want something quick. They want 20 minutes, they want a little pick-me-up, they want just a little vitamin to get them through the week. They don't want to study the Bible, they don't want to read the Bible, they don't want to learn the deep things of God that God has revealed to us by his Spirit. We need to make sure that we don't become these short attention span, TV junkie, just low intelligence type people. We need to get some smarts. Amen? And so Daniel was a man who studied and learned and read his Bible and he also prayed to the Lord to get more understanding on the Bible. So what's the 70 years that he read about? The 70 years is about how Jerusalem is going to be desolate for 70 years. And then at the end of that time, he's going to bring the children of Israel back into the promised land. And it's going to be a new generation because of course after 70 years, most people will have died and it will mainly be people who were raised in Babylon. He says in verse 3, I set my face unto the Lord God to seek by prayer and supplication with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. And I prayed unto the Lord my God and made my confession and said, O Lord, the great and dreadful God, keeping the covenant and mercy to them that love him and to them that keep his commandments, we have sinned and have committed iniquity and have done wickedly and have rebelled even by departing from thy precepts and from thy judgments. And what I love about this prayer is that Daniel does not make excuses one time in this prayer. He just says, we've sinned, we've rebelled, we've done wickedly, we didn't listen to the prophets, we didn't follow the commandments, we didn't keep the covenant. I'm sorry. Now this is the right kind of apology. This is the right kind of confession. So often in the Bible and so often in our lives we see examples of bad apologies. Where someone's confronted with doing wrong and they say, oh, well, you know, the woman beguiled me. All the way back to Adam and Eve, right? And then she says, oh, there's a serpent. Everybody always wants to blame somebody else and not take responsibility for their actions. But the right type of prayer, the right type of confession or apology is found in Daniel chapter 9. Another great place that it's found is Psalm 51 where David confesses his sin to God about the matter of Bathsheba. And when David is confronted by Nathan the prophet about that wicked sin regarding Bathsheba and Uriah the Hittite, here's what he said, I've sinned. He didn't say, well, it's not my fault that, you know, she didn't have a better shower curtain or something. You know, he said, I've sinned. It's my fault. And we need to make sure that we are people who take responsibility for our actions. And if we do wrong, we need to say that we're sorry and admit it and not always make excuses and point the finger at other people and blame others. That's not a real apology. We've all received those kind of fake apologies in our life and they're frustrated. Well, I'm sorry that you felt that way. I'm sorry that you were offended by the wrong, you know. And instead of just saying, hey, look, I did wrong, I'm sorry. And that's what we see here, a great example of prayer unto the Lord. A great example of confessing your sins. And we need to pray to the Lord constantly and take chapters like this as a model and learn how to pray from chapters like Daniel chapter 9. This could teach us how to pray and confess our sins to God when we've sinned, when we've committed iniquity, when we've rebelled. Because there's not a just man upon the earth that doeth good and sinneth not. We're all sinners and there are always going to be times when we need to pray prayers like this to God. Or when we need to make statements like this to other people and say, I'm sorry, I've done wrong here. And so this is a perfect example of confession. But notice what he says in verse 4. He said he made his confession and said, oh, Lord, the great and dreadful God. Dreadful means fearful or scary. You know, God is dreadful. God is a terrible, horrible God, the Bible says. Not bad. We use those words to mean bad. Obviously, God is good and his mercy endureth forever. But God should invoke terror, horror, dread and fear in the hearts of men. Because it's a fearful thing, the Bible says, to fall into the hands of the living God. And so the Bible says here that he is the great and dreadful God. But watch these next words. Keeping the covenant and mercy to them that love him and to them that keep his commandments. Now, what covenant are we talking about there when he says the covenant? Well, we're talking about the Old Covenant. We're definitely not talking about the New Testament. This is hundreds of years before the New Testament or the New Covenant were around. We're talking about the covenant that God made with the children of Israel in the day that he brought them out of the land of Egypt. And he says that he keeps the covenant to everybody who's a Jew. Is that what he said? He said he keeps the covenant to them that love him and to them that keep his commandments. Now, keep your finger there in Daniel 9. Go back to Exodus chapter 19. Exodus chapter 19. Now, what does the word covenant mean? A covenant is a promise, a contract or an agreement. For example, the word covenant is used interchangeably in the Bible with the word testament. Which makes us think of a last will and testament. So when a person dies, they leave their property to their children or to other beneficiaries of the will. And that's called their testament. And the Bible says in Hebrews, a testament is a force after men are dead. Otherwise, it is of no strength at all while the testator liveth. So if somebody has a great fortune and you're in the will but that person's still alive, you don't have the money. But when that person dies, then that testament goes into effect and now there is something that has been granted to you in the will. Now, these type of covenants, testaments, contracts, promises, agreements, sometimes they have strings attached and sometimes they don't. So it might just say that when I die, I bequeath unto so and so and so and so all my money and they just get the money, period. That's it. But other last wills and testaments will sometimes have stipulations on it. I remember I knew this one guy and his parents had a lot of money and they put in the will that he would not receive his inheritance unless he stays single until he's 25 years old. Now, I thought that was a terrible idea on his parents' part. And, you know, that if he gets married before he's 25, he's going to lose the inheritance. I think that's bad advice because the Bible talks about the wife of your youth and getting married young, depending on the situation, can be a blessing. So we shouldn't just force somebody to wait until after they're 25. But that's an example of a covenant that had some strings attached, right? Now, in the Bible, there are certain covenants that God makes with man. And some of these covenants are unconditional covenants and some of them have strings attached. Now, God made a covenant with Abraham in Genesis 12. It's known as the Abrahamic Covenant. God made a covenant with David called the Davidic Covenant. God made a covenant with the children of Israel in the day that he took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt. This is the Old Covenant, the Old Testament that God made with the Israelites in the book of Exodus. That's the most famous Old Testament, okay? Now, let's look at the strings attached to this covenant in Exodus chapter 19, verse number 5. The Bible says, So here in Exodus 19, 5, and 6, we see some stipulations here that God is making a covenant with them and saying that there's an end of the bargain that they have to keep. There's a part of the covenant that they have to keep. They have to obey his voice and keep his covenant. And if they do, then what do they get? Well, then they will be a peculiar treasure unto him above all people. They will be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. So that means if they don't keep his covenant, they're not going to be a holy nation. They're not going to be a peculiar people. They're not going to be the chosen of God. Now compare this with 1 Peter chapter 2. You can turn there if you like, or you can just listen in. In 1 Peter chapter 2, it actually quotes Exodus chapter 19, so we can get a New Testament interpretation on this. It says in verse 9, Notice it's the exact same language from Exodus 19. So in 1 Peter chapter 2, he's not talking to the Jews. He's not talking to the Old Testament nation of Israel. He's talking to Christians, believers from all over the world, and he says to those believers, You are the chosen nation. You are the peculiar people. You're the holy nation. You're the royal priesthood now. So the same promise that he made to Exodus 19 to the children of Israel if they kept his covenant and obeyed his voice, now he has given those things unto Christians in the New Testament. And notice what he says to the Christians. In time past, you were not a people. But now you are the people of God. That proves he's not talking to Israel, because Israel in time past was a people. I mean, they've been a people for thousands of years. No, he's saying to Christians from all nations, red, yellow, black, white, collectively, he's saying you are the chosen people. So it's not the Jews that are the chosen people because of their ethnicity. It's anyone who has Jesus Christ in their heart, anyone who is the elect of God, by being justified by faith, that person is one of the chosen in the New Testament. They're the holy nation. They're the royal priesthood. And my whole life I've heard 1 Peter 2 verses 9 and 10 being applied to Christians. I mean, how many times have we heard in Baptist churches that we're to be a peculiar people? Every church will preach that. But isn't it amazing how they completely ignore the fact that that was something that was promised to the children of Israel that was taken away from them and given to believing Gentiles in the New Testament and Jews that have gotten saved and believe in Christ. Go to Hebrews chapter 8, if you would. Hebrews chapter 8. And we'll see this even further. The Bible is very consistent on this point. We saw the covenant made in Exodus 19 clearly had a stipulation. You've got to keep my covenant. You've got to obey my voice. Then you'll be my people and I'll be your God. Then we see in Hebrews chapter number 8, the Bible says beginning in verse 8, For finding fault with them he saith, Behold the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord. So you see, because they did not keep their end of the bargain, he did not regard them as the chosen people. He did not regard them as the holy nation. He did not regard them as his people. So let me ask you this. Why do we? Why do so many Christians in the New Testament regard Christ rejecting Israel as the people of God? God said, I didn't regard them. They didn't continue in my covenant. That's why Jesus said the kingdom of God shall be taken from you and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof. And what's that new nation? Well, it's not a physical nation. It's not Germany or France or Brazil or the United States. No, it is a nation that's made up of all believers. It's the nation of God's elect, those who believe on Christ from all kindreds and tongues and people and nations. And so he says, I regarded them not, saith the Lord, for this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord. I will put my laws into their mind and write them in their hearts, and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people, and they shall not teach every man his neighbor and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for all shall know me from the least to the greatest. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more, and that he saith a new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away. Poof, gone. So don't sit there and tell me that that old covenant was an everlasting covenant that God made with Israel when he brought him out of Egypt to be his people. Wrong, it was not an everlasting covenant made with them because it's ready to vanish away. This was written a couple thousand years ago. If it was ready to vanish away by then, it's gone, just so you know. What does that mean? That means that in order for the children of Israel or the children of Judah to be part of the holy nation, to be the people of God, they're going to have to do it through the new covenant, not the old covenant. They can't take this old covenant back door into the kingdom of God. They have to go through the new covenant. The old covenant is no longer in effect. And what that means is that they have to go through the blood of Christ, because isn't that what Jesus said when he said this blood, this is the, isn't that what Jesus said, this cup is the blood of the New Testament? I'm quoting that wrong. He said, help me out, this cup is the New Testament in my blood. Isn't that what he said? So the blood of Jesus Christ is what sanctifies the new covenant. So if any Jew or Gentile wants to be a part of the people of God, they both come in the same way, through the blood of Christ. There's no Old Testament exemption for Israel or Judah or anybody else. We're in the new covenant. So in Daniel chapter 9, if you go back there with all that in mind, He says in verse 4, He says in verse 4, O Lord, the great and dreadful God, keeping the covenant and mercy to them that love him, and to them that keep his commandments, we have sinned and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled even by departing from thy precepts and from thy judgments. So, in the old covenant, what made you the people of God? Well, you had to be circumcised, you had to be a part of the nation of Israel, and you had to keep God's laws. You had to keep the ordinances, you followed the commandments, and that made... Now this has nothing to do with salvation. This isn't about how they got to heaven. It's just, what made you the chosen people? Was, you had to keep his covenant, you had to get circumcised, you had to follow the laws. What makes us God's people in the New Testament, under the new covenant, is being washed in the blood of Jesus. So all we have to do is just believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and we are God's people in the New Testament. Now in the Old Testament it wasn't that way. You had to do more. You had to keep the covenant. And again, this has nothing to do with salvation. Salvation, as far as getting to heaven, has always been by grace through faith. It's never involved any works or adherence to the law. And people of other nations in the Old Testament would go to heaven simply by just believing on the Lord and calling upon the name of the Lord. They didn't have to join the nation of Israel in order to be saved. Okay. So we're talking about two different things here. Salvation's always been by faith. Old covenant though, to be one of the chosen people, you had to join the nation of Israel and keep the laws, and keep the statutes. In the New Testament, by believing in Christ, you are automatically the people of God. If you have trusted Christ as Savior, that's the difference. So let's keep reading here in Daniel chapter 9. He said in verse 6, Neither have we hearkened unto thy servants the prophets, which spake in thy name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land. O Lord, righteousness belongeth unto thee, but unto us confusion of faces is at this day, to the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and unto all Israel that are near and that are far off, through all the countries whither thou hast driven them, because of their trespass, that they have trespassed against thee. O Lord, to us belongeth confusion of face to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against thee. To the Lord our God belong mercies and forgiveness, though we have rebelled against him. Look, over and over again through this passage, we read the whole thing before the sermon, but he just keeps saying, we've sinned, we didn't listen to preaching, we didn't listen to what it says in the Bible, we're wrong, you're right, and he doesn't ascribe any of the blame to God or anyone else, he just proclaims God's righteousness, God's perfection, God's justice, and his own failures, and the failures of his nation. This is the right kind of attitude to have before God. Total humility, and a total submission to him, and realizing that everything he does is right. But he's also begging for mercy, he's also asking God to forgive, and to bring the people back to the promised land, and to help him understand what God has in store for his nation. There's so much we can learn from this chapter. How about the fact that Daniel, even as an old man, is still doing great works for God? He's still studying the Bible. He's not just thinking to himself, oh, I'm 80-some years old, I don't need to study the Bible anymore, I don't need to preach anymore, I don't need to pray and fast, who cares if the people are going back to the land? I'm so old, I'm probably not going. No, he still loves his nation, he still loves people, I mean, he's got to be 80-some years old by now. 70 years of captivity later. And yet, he's praying, he's fasting, he's studying his Bible. He loves the Lord, he's still doing great works, he's still going to receive his greatest prophecies going forward. So that's a great encouragement to those who are older, that you're still in the battle. If God were through with you, he would have already taken you home. And so we see Daniel pleading and praying with God, wanting to know the Bible, and wanting his people to be blessed. Verse 16, oh Lord, according to all thy righteousness, I beseech thee, let thine anger and thy fury be turned away from the city Jerusalem, thy holy mountain, because of our sins, and for the iniquities of our fathers. Jerusalem and thy people are become a reproach to all that are about us. Now, therefore, our God, hear the prayer of thy servant and his supplications, and cause thy face to shine upon thy sanctuary that is desolate for the Lord's sake. What is that sanctuary? Sanctuary, that word simply means holy place. And the sanctuary is often referring to the tabernacle or the temple of God. And in the tabernacle, and later in the temple of God, there was a place known as the holy place, or the sanctuary, and then there was a place known as the most holy place, also known as the holy of holies, or the holiest of all. But remember, the temple was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. It was wiped out. It was desolate for 70 years. But, at the end of the 70 years, God's going to bring them back to the promised land, and he's also going to allow them to rebuild the temple, so that at the time of Christ, the temple is built, and it's magnificent. And the disciples talk about how impressive it is. Now, let's jump down to verse 20. The Bible says, And while I was speaking and praying, and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my supplication before the Lord my God for the holy mountain of my God, and while I was speaking in prayer, even the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, touched me about the time of the evening oblation. Some people might wonder where the idea of angels flying comes from. This is one of those places where it would mention that the man Gabriel was caused to fly swiftly, and touched me about the time of the evening oblation. He informed me, and talked with me, and said, O Daniel, I am now come forth to give thee skill and understanding. So his prayer is being answered. He prays for wisdom, knowledge, understanding, and he gets the answer. The Bible says, If any of you lack wisdom, let have ask of God that give it to all men liberally, and upbraideth not, and it shall be given. If we seek, we shall find. If we want wisdom, and we cry out to God for it, and if we study the Bible, and then ask him to guide us, he will give us understanding. Here's the answer to the prayer. Now he gets into this prophecy that's so famous in Daniel, chapter 9, of the 70 weeks. This is probably the most famous prophecy in the latter half of the book of Daniel, chapter 7 through 12, is this prophecy about the 70 weeks, and we've all heard of Daniel's 70th week. This is a very important prophecy, very famous. I mean, there have just been thousands and thousands of sermons preached on the 70 weeks of Daniel. Just stacks and stacks of books have been written. Millions and millions of words have been penned down, just trying to interpret the next four verses here. I mean, this is a really intense scripture here. And a lot of people have a lot of different viewpoints on this, and a lot of different ways that they understand this. I'm going to try to shed some serious light on this for you this morning. It says in verse 24, The 70 weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy. Now, as we tackle this scripture, I think a great way to do this, because of the fact that there are some unknowns in this scripture, things that we don't quite know or don't quite understand. It's sort of like an algebra problem where you solve for x. First, figure out what you do know and fill in all the variables that you do know, and then you solve for x last, right? But first, you simplify what you do know, right? So we need to reduce this equation here and figure out what are we talking about. Now, remember, at the beginning of the chapter, Daniel had been studying the 70 years, okay? Which, that was pretty straightforward. He understood that. But now, at the end of the chapter, he's being given another prophecy that's a little more complicated. It's not about 70 years. It's about 70 weeks. Now, when the Bible uses the word weeks here, it's not a week like we think of seven days, but rather it's a week of years. It's a group of seven years. So when he says 70 weeks, he's talking about 70 periods that are seven years long each, okay? And he says here, 70 weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city. So we've got the 70 years under our belt of Babylonian captivity, but now going forward, there are going to be 70 weeks. And what are these 70 weeks going to accomplish? They're going to accomplish finishing the transgression, making an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision in prophecy, and to anoint the most holy. That's a pretty tall order. That's a lot to happen, right? So let's, again, using the algebra idea of figuring out what we do know and what we do understand, let's figure out what some of these things are that are going to be accomplished in the 70 weeks of time. Okay, well, it says that these are upon thy people and upon thy holy city. Obviously, the context here is Jerusalem and the Jews, because that's what he's been praying about this whole chapter. That's obviously what we're referring to, Jerusalem being desolate and so forth. And so that's going to be the subject matter. He says to finish the transgression, to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity. Now, how do you make an end of sins and make reconciliation for iniquity? Well, we know he doesn't mean that they're going to stop sinning. Everybody's going to stop sinning 70 weeks from now. Obviously, that can't be the case. To make an end of sins or to make reconciliation for iniquity has to do with Jesus Christ coming and dying on the cross. Because when Jesus Christ comes and dies on the cross, he's going to die for their sins. He's going to pay for their sins. So he's making an end of sins. And he's also making reconciliation, right, for iniquity. That makes perfect sense. And he's bringing in everlasting righteousness. Now think about that. We're saved by righteousness. Not our own righteousness, but the righteousness which is of God by faith. It's the righteousness of Jesus Christ that's imputed unto us. That's everlasting righteousness. And when we get saved, we are justified or declared righteous in the eyes of God. And we receive everlasting life. He'll never leave us nor forsake us. We shall not come into condemnation. We have everlasting righteousness. Our iniquities and transgressions have been forgiven and we've been reconciled to God by the blood of Jesus Christ. So obviously, this prophecy about the 70 weeks has to do with Jesus Christ coming and dying on the cross for our sins. Isn't that pretty clear from that verse? We're just kind of starting with things that we do understand. Things that are pretty clear. I don't think anybody would argue with the fact that in verse 24, we're definitely pointing to Jesus here. When we talk about bringing in everlasting righteousness, making reconciliation for iniquity, making end of sins. I mean, who else could do that? That's Jesus. His death, burial, and resurrection. But there are some other things that are mentioned. Finishing the transgression. Finishing the transgression. That sounds like there is some kind of transgression or sin or something wicked that is going to continue. It's not quite finished. It's going to be finished during that time. And then he says to seal up the vision and prophecy. Now that sounds to me like tying up the loose ends of vision and prophecy. Sealing up the vision and prophecy. Finishing out things that have been prophesied. There are things that have been prophesied that need to be fulfilled. They need to happen. And then he says to anoint the most holy. And again, this is clearly a reference to Jesus Christ. Because Jesus Christ is the most holy and he's also the anointed. Because let me remind you, the word Christ is the Greek word for the Hebrew word Messiah. Because that's why it says in John 1, we found the Christ. It's the Greek word. Which being interpreted is the Messiah. The Hebrew word. But we can also study our Bibles further. And without having to spend even one second in a Greek or Hebrew class. We can understand that both Christ and Messiah mean anointed. Why? Because in Psalm 2, he says against the Lord and against his anointed. And then that's quoted in the book of Acts as against the Lord and against his Christ. So we can just study our King James Bible and see clearly that anointed, Christ, and Messiah are all the same word. They mean the same thing in different languages. One's English, one's Hebrew, one's Greek. And so he says here to anoint the most holy. Now in what ways was Christ anointed? Well, all throughout the Old Testament, priests were anointed and kings were anointed. Now anointed is where we get our word ointment. So in the Old Testament, they were anointed with oil. The high priests and all of the priests were anointed with oil. And then also kings would be anointed. Saul was anointed king. David was anointed king. Solomon was anointed king. Jesus Christ is both. And he is actually three things. He's prophet and priest and king. So he has that triple anointing there. You see that? He's Christ three different ways. He's that prophet that Moses prophesied would come. He's the son of David. He's going to sit on the throne of his father David. So he's anointed as king. And he's also a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. So he is Christ in every way. Prophet, priest, and king. So he is going to be anointed. So it would be pretty hard to ignore that verse 24 is talking about Jesus. Right? Look at verse 25. It says, So therefore and understand that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem, unto the Messiah, which it means of course the Christ or the anointed, the prince, so the Messiah is called also here the prince, and remember in the New Testament Jesus is called the prince of peace. It says here, unto the Messiah the prince shall be seven weeks and threescore and two weeks. Now that adds up to 69 weeks. Now a lot of people will just combine this and just call it 69 weeks. But that's not really what it says is it? It says there are going to be seven weeks and then there are going to be 62 weeks. Now a lot of people will take exception to the fact that there's a gap between the 69th week and the 70th week. And they say, you know, where do you get off putting this gap in there? Well guess what? There's a gap between the seventh week and the eighth week as well. Because there are seven weeks, then there's a gap, then there are 62 weeks, and then there's a gap, and then there's a 70th week. So we need to understand that these weeks come in three phases, not two, it's not 69 weeks and then one week, it's seven and then 62 and then one. Let's keep reading. It says that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem, it's where Cyrus makes the great commandment about building the temple, building Jerusalem, sending the Jews back to the promised land. From that time there shall be seven weeks and threescore in two weeks. The street shall be built again and the wall even in troublous times. So they're going to rebuild Jerusalem, they're going to rebuild the wall around Jerusalem, they're going to rebuild the street of Jerusalem, and it's going to take place in troublous times. And notice that in Ezra and Nehemiah and also in the prophets of Zechariah and Haggai. But after threescore in two weeks, shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself. Now this is clearly referring to the death of Jesus Christ. Because it talks about the Messiah being cut off, which is often in the Bible a euphemism for someone being killed. And notice he's not dying for himself. Because he's dying for others. He's dying for the sins of the whole world. So after 62 weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself. And the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary, and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and at the end of the war, desolations are determined. Now let's talk about that in a moment, but first let's stop and talk about the seven weeks and the 62 weeks. Now what a lot of people will do, because we have the advantage of hindsight, is that they'll say, OK, well we know when Messiah was cut off. 33 AD, right? I mean, that's what our whole calendar is based on, the birth of Christ. And anything BC is how many years before Christ was born. And anything AD in the year of our Lord, Anno Domini, is how many years after the birth of Christ. So we know that Jesus was 33 and a half years old when he died, and so we could work our way backward. And people have tried to work their way backward and tried to say, well this was telling them basically exactly when Christ would die, that they could have used this to calculate and know exactly when Christ would die. So what they'll do is they'll basically start with 33 AD, work backwards by adding the 69 weeks, right? So they go 69 times 7, and then they add that all up. You know, they take the 483 years, and then oh, we have 450 BC. But here's the thing, it doesn't work, because you go back to that time, and that's not when the pronouncement was made. That's not when the commandment was given to restore and to rebuild Jerusalem. So then they sort of begin to cook the books, and they begin to goof around with numbers and say, well, a biblical year, a prophetic year, is only 360 days, so therefore we got to do it. And so they kind of just keep tweaking it until they get the answer they want. And then they find another pronouncement made by Artaxerxes way after Cyrus' pronouncement, and they, look, I'm not buying it, and I'll tell you why I'm not buying it, because if the Bible is telling us how many years, prophetic years, even in prophetic years, you still have to match the sun and end up adding in the extra months for the elite month and everything. The biblical prophetic years don't just keep getting further off from real years. That's crazy. But anyway, I don't want to go too deep on that for the sake of time, but the point is, people want to make this fit, their agenda of, oh, yeah, if you just counted the years, you'll know exactly when Christ is going to die. Well, here's the thing, that's funny, because nobody at the time of Christ had done that math, and it seems like a pretty simple math that if Cyrus made the pronouncement and if they just add 69 times 7, 483 years, well, guess what, the math doesn't add up. That's why they weren't just saying, oh, well, this is kind of interesting that we're crucifying Jesus right now when everybody look at your calendar, it just happens to be the exact year. Look, the reason why it doesn't add up, let me explain to you why, is because there is a gap between the 7 weeks and the 62 weeks. That's why it doesn't add up, because it's not just 69 weeks, there's a gap. Now, I'm going to prove to you in a moment that there's a gap before the 70th week, but the point is, because there is a gap and because they didn't know how long that gap is, they could not calculate. God did not want them to know exactly when Christ would come and exactly when he was going to die. It would have been giving them too much information, then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Now, when it came to the 70-year captivity, he wanted them to know exactly when that would happen, so he explicitly told them. 70 years and then it's over. But in this chapter, what God wants them to know is that these things are going to happen. There are going to be 70 significant weeks of prophecy that are going to bring about this, this, and this. He wants them to know that these things are happening, but he throws in a little mystery there to where they can't really do the exact math because there's a gap between the 7 years and the 62 years. Now, I believe that the 7 years is referring to just getting the temple built and the wall built and the street built, because if you think about it, that makes sense. If Cyrus gave a pronouncement where we're just now starting to think about, okay, let's do this, let's build this, and then if we remember that there were interruptions, it probably took them a little while to get started, and then after they build the temple, they got to build the wall, and then remember, what did the Pharisees say? They said, well, 40 in 6 years was this temple in building. So it makes sense that a 49-year period could refer to just getting over to Jerusalem, getting the temple built, and so forth. So that's probably what that 7 weeks is referring to because he says in verse number 25, Know therefore and understand that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem, unto the Messiah the Prince shall be 7 weeks and threescore and 2 weeks, and then he says the street shall be built again and the wall even in troublous times, and after threescore and 2 weeks shall Messiah be cut off. So basically, the 7 weeks end with the street being built again, the wall being built, everything's built, okay? That's what ends the 7 weeks. And then what ends the 62 weeks is Christ being killed on the cross, Messiah being cut off, not for himself. So is everybody following so far as we go through this and try to understand this? He says then in verse 26, After threescore and 2 weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself, and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary, and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined. Now again, we have hindsight. We're living thousands of years later. We know what already happened, so we can look back. Daniel is getting this stuff and he doesn't necessarily know exactly what's going to happen. We know because it already happened. We look backward on these things and we know that the sanctuary and the city were destroyed in 70 A.D. That's a historical fact. If you doubt that historical fact, just get on a plane and go to Jerusalem and go look at it. It's not there. The temple's gone, so it must have been destroyed. And when Jesus was on this earth, it was there. Now it's gone. It got destroyed. Not only that, but Jesus said it was going to be destroyed. He said not one stone is going to be left upon another. It's all going to be thrown down. And he also prophesied through parables that Jerusalem would be burned and destroyed and wiped out. He'll wipe out their city, he said. Okay, so we have hindsight and we know what this is talking about when it says that the people of the prince that shall come, we know that that's the Romans, they shall destroy the city of Jerusalem, he's saying, and the sanctuary, which is the temple, and the end thereof shall be with a flood. Now, there was no flood of water in those days, because often if you just look up every time the word flood is used in the Bible, it's usually referring to just a ton of troops coming in. A flood of soldiers. Okay, a flood of people. Look up and you'll see that there are a lot of instances of that throughout the Bible. And the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war, desolations are determined. Okay, so stop and think about it. After three score and two weeks, Messiah is cut off, not for himself. Then it says, and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary, and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war, notice that word the war there, desolations are determined. So, when the people of the prince that shall come destroy the city and the temple, that's part of a war, isn't it? Because he refers to that as the war, okay? Now, when did Jesus die? 33 AD. Right? Give or take, but that's as best as we know. 33 AD or so. Okay, when was Jerusalem and the temple wiped out? 70 AD. So is there a gap between those two things? For sure. Okay, now let's read verse 27. This is kind of the big verse that everybody focuses on, and all of this is pretty important. But verse 27 says, and he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week. There's your 70th week, because we talked about the seven weeks, we talked about the 62 weeks, this is that one week that's left. And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week, and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the ablation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate. Now, let me just say this right now. It is not a coincidence that the temple was wiped out in 70 AD. Guess what year that war started in? This is known historically as the first Jewish-Roman war. It's very well documented. I mean, it was a big event that happened in that part of the world at that time. Well, it started in 66 AD. And guess when that war ended? 73 AD. So how long is it from 66 AD to 73 AD? Seven years. And guess when the temple was destroyed, and guess when the sacrifices ceased? In the midst of the week. Halfway through. I mean, look at it. It starts in 66, ends in 73, seven year period, and in the middle of it. Now, come on, is that a coincidence? And this is accurately predicted hundreds and hundreds of years before it happened. I mean, this is amazing. So not only is the rebuilding of the temple and the return to Jerusalem predicted, not only is the Messiah being killed not for himself predicted, but also the burning and destruction of Jerusalem, the destruction of the temple is predicted, and the fact that it's going to happen in a war that lasts seven years, and in the midst of it is when the daily sacrifice will cease, and when Jerusalem will be laid desolate in the midst of that week. Coincidence? No. This is extremely accurate prophecy. The Book of Daniel is one of the most amazing books in the Bible for prophetic accuracy. Now, here's where people go astray. Where people go astray is they say, Well, this already happened in AD 70, nothing more to see here. No more abomination of desolation, no more Daniel 70th week, it's all in the past, it already happened. They're wrong. How do we know that they're wrong? Well, look, if we didn't have a New Testament, then we'd say, Yeah, this is over, this already happened. Right? Except this is how we know it's not over, because we have the Book of Revelation. Revelation talks about a future seven-year period where tons of things happen that did not happen in AD 70. Do I need to tell you that in AD 70, Christ didn't come in the clouds, the trumpet didn't sound, the dead didn't rise out of the graves, and by the way, there were no trumpet judgments and vile judgments. And by the way, when you read the Book of Revelation, guess what? It's not about Israel and the Jews, it's about the whole world. How many times does it say in Revelation, All nations, all kindreds, all people, all tongues, every mountain, every island, the whole world, the whole place. I mean, it's crystal clear that in Revelation, it's the entire world. Now look, this Jewish-Roman war was a pretty big deal if you were living in Israel at that time, but guess what? It didn't affect the whole world. If you were living in India or China, or if you were living down in Africa or in Western Europe, you know, you probably didn't really think that much about this. This didn't affect the whole world. Did a third of the seas turn into blood? Did a star fall from the sky called Wormwood? Did locusts come up out of the bottomless pit and torment people for five months? None of that stuff happened. None of it happened. Did the second coming of Christ happen? No. And so this idea of preterism has got to be one of the dumbest doctrines in the world, where they just say, oh, it already happened. It's over. Done. But there's some truth in every lie. The truth of preterism is that, yeah, this stuff did already all happen, but the lie is that it's not going to happen again. Guess what? It is going to happen again. I don't remember people having to get a mark in their right hand or in their forehead to buy or sell back in the first century A.D. That never happened, but that's going to happen, and we're sort of like Daniel right now in history. We're like Daniel where we're at the point where prophecy is being fulfilled around us and it's about to be fulfilled, sort of like Daniel when he's at the end of that 70-year Babylonian captivity. Man, he got excited about reading the book of Jeremiah because he was right there where it was happening, and that's kind of how we are when we look at Revelation and Daniel because we're starting to see these things happen. Global currency, cashless society, one world religion, one world government, one world financial system, and we are seeing things falling into place for the anti-Christ and for all these things, and we even see over in Israel that they have created this nation of Israel and they're talking about rebuilding the temple, and I mean it's all happening, folks. Against all the odds, that has happened. Why? Because these things must be fulfilled. So don't get into this preterism or historicism. It's really a foolish doctrine. You have to just ignore the whole book of Revelation. You've got to ignore a lot of 1 and 2 Thessalonians. You've got to ignore a lot of the Olivet Discourse. It's a fraud. But at the same time, don't make the other mistake where you ignore that this already happened. Yes, it did happen. And by the way, it already happened twice because in the previous lessons of the book of Daniel, we saw what? Antiochus Epiphanes in 168 AD with the abomination of desolation during the Greek period, clearly prophesied by Daniel, which we're going to talk more about tonight in the sermon on Daniel 11. And then what do we see? Another abomination of desolation in 70 AD, and there's going to be a third abomination of desolation in the end times. The Bible's clear. There's going to be that seven-year period in the end times. And I don't have time to read you the entire book of Revelation right now to show you how it didn't happen already. It's still coming in the future. Plus, the book of Revelation was written after 70 AD, and it still talks about these things as coming in the future. But even if it were written before 70 AD, as some preterists will try to erroneously claim, ah, it just didn't happen, folks. So anyway, don't let these preterists spin you around. If they say, well, it already happened in 70 AD, just say, yeah, it did. Yeah, isn't that amazing how they had that seven-year war? And right in the midst of it is when the temple was wiped out, just like God said. Pretty amazing, isn't it? But you say, well, how can there be more than one? Dual fulfillment, as I preached in such detail on Wednesday night. But not only that, look how many other things happen in cycles in the Bible. How many temples getting built and wiped out? Think about that. First temple was built, destroyed. Second temple, built, destroyed. There's going to be a third temple. How about the book of Judges? You want to talk about a pattern, a cycle. The world works in cycles. God works in cycles. And these things are culminating to the end times. You have Antiochus Epiphanes. Then you have the Romans in 70 AD. Then you have the Antichrist, the big Antichrist at the end of time. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word. Lord, help us to understand by books. Help us to pray and seek your face like Daniel did. And Lord, in our personal lives, if the boss at work confronts us, Lord, help us to take Daniel as an example of how to confess our sins and our faults and not to make excuses and blame other people, Lord. And if we're confronted by parents or anyone else in authority over us, Lord, help us to admit that we're wrong, say that we're sorry, and not make excuses. And especially, Lord, unto you, the judge of the whole earth. Help us to have the humble, penitent attitude that Daniel had in chapter 9 when we pray to you. And Lord, just give us the wisdom and skill and knowledge and understanding that we all seek in these last days. And in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.